Thursday, September 06, 2007

Borders Added!

I came home from choir practice last night, had the house to myself for a while longer and sat right down and got the borders on this quilt :c)There was just enough black to do a 1.5" cut inner border. None left! I had some block parts left over, and I used those up in the corners of the outer border. I'm happy with it! I've been thinking of what else I could do to make this extra special....I am going to use up a huge piece of a white-on-cream fabric as the backing of this quilt, and I thought about how fun it would be to have all the choir members write their sentiments on it! So signatures and "words of wisdom" can be on the back of the quilt.

I asked Elizabeth, the choir assistant if she was aware of any Sunday or Wednesday rehearsal where Jared (the director) would be gone. I could bring it in and have everyone sign it then.....but she wasn't aware of any time that he would be gone so I could have concentrated time to catch everyone!

Time is of the essence here...so my question is this......would it work if I were to have everyone sign the quilt back AFTER quilting? Or would that just be messy? I need some ideas here. I didn't want to have everyone sign individual blocks, there just isn't time to get that all together, it would be like piecing a whole 'nuther quilt top.

Any ideas????

And I will leave you while you think...with this lovely photo of all the shirts PILED into my wicker laundry basket. Daunting task!! I haven't started cutting them yet. No time so far....and today may be no different than yesterday...the only sewing I got done yesterday was the time it took to add the two borders to Jared's wedding quilt!

9 comments:

I think the signing on a quilted back depends on how densely it is quilted... Less dense would allow for easier signing - the signers do not have to worry about the threads.

I think the better idea may be to have a large label for everyone to sign that then just has to be appliqued to the back afterwards... You could back it with freezer paper making it easier still for signing. (The freezer paper could be "lined" as well also helping with signing & keeping enough room for everyone.)

I did a quilt this way out of necessity...a young boy in our town had cancer (he's since passed away) and I made a scrappy nine patch quilt completely for him. We had a night to honor him at our town hall and I stayed in a back room and had everyone come in and sign the quilt (on the front) with Pigma pens. There was no problem with the signing, but it wasn't densely quilted. After the event, I took it home, heat set all the signatures and then presented it to him and his parents. I still see his mom and she's never mentioned a problem with it, although I think they have it hanging on a wall, so I don't know if it's been washed. Hope this helps!

Looks great Bonnie! I should think you could have people write on the back after quilting. The only problem is that you couldn't stabilize the fabric with freezer paper. I know I always write my "label" directly onto the back of any quilt that has a light colored back, and I have no trouble doing it.

Your overflowing basket of shirts is SO funny! You're not going to reduce your stash this way! ;-)

I was thinking that it would be too hard to sign a quilted backing, but Patti has a good point. I, too, sign my own quilts after they are done. True, it is more easily done on the flat fabric on a hard surface, BUT it can be done after quilting. You might suggest to the signers that they use lighter pen pressure. ;-)Very nice quilt!! As always!

Beautiful quilt and I am sure the choir assistant will love it! I think Amy's idea is good... Or you could cut a series of 6.5" squares, backed with freezer paper and get a few people to sign each square - then piece them together into a row of sawtooth stars for the back. Or just piece them together into a row to attach to the back. That would give you a chance to heat set the writting, and you might even be able to keep 6.5" squares of fabric a secret right under his nose!!!